Mythic: WoW is Copying Warhammer

Andy Chalk

One Flag, One Fleet, One Cat
Nov 12, 2002
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Mythic: WoW is Copying Warhammer


Warhammer Online [http://www.mythicentertainment.com/].

In an interview with GamesIndustry [http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/mythic-flattered-by-warcraft-s-imitation-combat], Jacobs claimed the new World of Warcraft PvP features are an imitation of those found in Mythic's Warhammer Online, which features open-world player-versus-player and realm-versus-realm combat as a central aspect of the game. "You have a game that's been out for four years, they've never put in world PvP like ours, they've never been able to level through PvP like in ours," he said. "I think it's absolutely a reaction to Warhammer. It wasn't like all of a sudden the idea of open world PvP or leveling through PvP came into their heads and went 'nobody's ever done this before'."

"I don't think it was accidental that they're talking about doing it when Warhammer comes out," he continued. "Four years and suddenly, miraculously, at the same time Warhammer comes out that's when they start talking about these things... I think it was Jeff Kaplan who said they like to look at other games and learn from them - well, I'm flattered." Kaplan claimed [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/86886] last week that the Warhammer Online interface is "very similar" to the one used in World of Warcraft and said, "Any savvy game developer is going to play a lot of other games and pick from the best."

Jacobs also admitted that despite a positive start, it's difficult to tell what sort of success Warhammer Online will have in convincing players to subscribe to the game beyond the 30-day free trial period. "If we're successful, we'll have a high conversion rate and we'll keep the vast majority of our subs. No one has been billed yet, so we won't know this really for at least several months, in terms of how well we're doing, unless we start off horribly," he said. But he remained optimistic, adding, "Everything we've done internally, in terms of looking at internal polls, people posting on forums, emails from people, all we've seen so far is that we're well on track."


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Amnestic

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Aug 22, 2008
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Hang on a sec, what exactly are they talking about here? WoW had open world PvP objectives since TBC came out. I'm confused as to the specifics of what Blizzard are 'copying' here?
 

WNxSajuukCor

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Oct 31, 2007
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Cause, you know, the towers in Eastern Plaguelands and the Silithus objectives (both before the Burning Crusade expansion) as well as the Hellfire bases, Halaa and Spirit Towers in Terrokar all ripped off Warhammer Online. You know, before it was made. Has nothing to do with the evolution of a MMO game, they stole it all /eyeroll

Come to think of it Mythic has been really bashy on what they say about pretty much everything and always compare their game to WoW and how "superior" it is. Have some sport why don't ya, but I guess that's what you get for a company owned by EA <_<
 

Slycne

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Feb 19, 2006
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I think he is referring to Lake Wintergrasp. While World of Warcraft has indeed had World PvP objectives, there was little emphasis made on them. The only one that caused a regular amount of PvP from my experience was the Spirit Towers around Auchindoun.
 

xitel

Assume That I Hate You.
Aug 13, 2008
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Of course they're going to similar, there's only so much you can do with an MMORPG in terms of PvP. Eventually, if they kept making new PvP changes, they would end up making something similar to each other.
 

geizr

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Oct 9, 2008
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I heard a rumor somewhere that the entire Warcraft franchise was originally a computerization of Warhammer, and that some political shenanigans resulted in Blizzard walking away with the rights to the game and renaming it Warcraft. I have not followed up on any of this; so, take it with a whole planet of salt.

As far as world pvp, I played WoW for 3 years(before I finally cut loose that horrible addiction), and I remember quite a bit of world pvp going on long before Warhammer Online. It may not be exactly the same implementation as Warhammer, but there was definitely world pvp.

Since I'm now out of the loop, I can only guess that the newer world pvp elements in WoW may be an evolution, not revolution, of the current world pvp. It is possible that that evolution is inspired by elements from the Warhammer world pvp. However, since I haven't thoroughly compared the two games, I'm just guess out my ass here.
 

nett3

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Jul 14, 2008
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Oh noes! They stolez our virtual ideas and does them better then us! After we stole there interface and a lot more!

Is it just me or does Mythic sound a lot like Sony during PS3 launch?
 

Xanadu84

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Apr 9, 2008
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WAR PvP is FAR more robust then WoW, and ive played both. WoW PvP feels kinda tacked on as an afterthought, while WAR pushes you into it from level 2. I'm not sure if WoW got the idea from WAR, but it certainly sounds like WoW is trying to shore up some weaknesses that WAR executes perfectly.

Also, to be fair, Blizzard owes Warhammer to begin with. Starcraft thanked them for not suing them over the Zerg looking suspiciously like the Tyranids. Mythic sounds like there gloating a little, but not to an over the top degree.
 

Lt. Sera

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Apr 22, 2008
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WoW only started putting in more PvP until after WAR devs started talking about how PvP focused WAR would be. Blizzard saw the reaction to it and decided it wanted to keep it's customers and put in more and more PvP changes.

I don't see how anyone can claim Blizzard wasn't heavily influenced by WAR's possible threat.

That said, who cares? Games copy each other all the time (hello bullet time, QTE). As long as the game in question becomes a better one because of it, good for them.
 

Rezfon

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Feb 25, 2008
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what a load of cod liver oil! Realm vs realm pvp has already been done on WoW ages ago, plus world pvp had always existed (even more before TBC), PvP servers. Tell me now that blizz stole that from a game that would be released way after it was. I don't think this is a problem with games workshop as was put by khell, it's just another developer trying to take credit on something that has already been done...sounds like a few other devs that come to mind.
 

Bumcheek

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Aug 9, 2008
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Ok sorry but, if Warhammer is ripping off wow , then you're mistaken because every MMORPG has that same interface, go tell LoTRO they're ripping wow off, well? and WAR = totally pvp and new mechanism and RvR , on the other hand wow = Player vs NPC
 

Saskwach

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Nov 4, 2007
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Why is there a defensive vibe in some of the comments here? The guy wasn't being sulky: in fact he said he was "flattered". Whether his assertion is correct is another matter, but I don't know why people think he's whinging.
 

UndeadAreGo

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Nov 7, 2007
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I find it funny that many of you are following along like good little soldiers, blindly rallying to the defense of your chosen game. Mythic and Blizzard have had a revolving door relationship of influence for years. Gasp! The games have similarities? How shocking!

Games have drawn influence from past title since the beginning. That's what progression is.
 

Bumcheek

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Aug 9, 2008
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Each MMORPG that comes out stupid people are like "omg u stole wow stealers"

bunch of 10 year olds if u ask me
 

Kirosilence

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Nov 28, 2007
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Comments like this send a bit of a clear message that the game that was apparently poised to 'Kill World of Wacraft' is floundering. I can see that World of Warcraft and Blizzard took something from the promises made by Mythic for WAR, they took them seriously. It is visible in the Wrath Beta. This is a good thing, they put everything they could into this game because they felt as if thier standing had been threatened. They implemented a style of PvP that argulably could be an expanded and polished version of PvP that has existsed in WoW since release; or arguably could be a copy of Warhammer.

Point fingers at Blizzard all you want for stealing your game concepts but you have to wonder, did anyone at Mythic actually play WoW? Did they realise the basic concepts behind WoW's upcoming PvP changes were cemented in the game long before Warhammer Online had even been announced?

If they did, than Warhammer Online is on a downward slope, this comment seems as a grasp for strings and a petty one at that.

And yes, Warcraft was based on Games Workshop's orginial Warhammer Fantasy tabletop game, and I even hear that at one point Blizzard had to pay royalties, but don't quote me on that. It is a strange cycle indeed.
 

rail16

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Oct 17, 2008
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Keep in mind, before Mythic released War, they ran, and still run, a very succesfully MMO that is based on PVP/RVR called Dark Age of Camelot.

Pretty much all the PVP/RVR that is in War is based on DAOC's PVP/RVR model but more refined.

And DAOC came out in 2001.

So it's safe to say that Blizzard copied elements of Mythic's work a long time before Mythic copied work done by the Blizzard MMO team.
 

TsunamiWombat

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Sep 6, 2008
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Huh... Hasn't WTOLK been under production since long before Warhammer came out?

It's just corporate dick waving, don't read into it too much.